New plant sources of the anti-cancer alkaloid, camptothecine from the Icacinaceae taxa, India

In this study, the production of camptothecine and its derivatives, in thirteen species of the family Icacinaceae, namely, Apodytes dimidiata, Codiocarpus andamanicus, Gomphandra comosa, Gomphandra coriacea, Gomphandra polymorpha, Gomphandra tetrandra, Iodes cirrhosa, Iodes hookeriana, Miquelia dentata, Miquelia kleinii, Natsiatum herpeticum, Pyrenacantha volubilis and Sarcostigma kleinii is reported. Seeds of M. dentata were found to produce the highest content of camptothecine (1.0–1.4% by dry weight of seeds). Full scan LC–MS and ESI-MS/MS analysis of M. dentata revealed, besides camptothecine, a number of other derivatives, namely, 10-hydroxycamptothecine, 9-methoxycamptothecine, 20-deoxycamptothecine. Crude extract preparations of the seeds of M. dentata were effective against a breast cancer cell line (IC50 = 3.82 μg/ml for MDA MB273 cell lines) and two ovarian cancer cell lines (IC50 = 2.8 μg/ml for NCI/ADR-RES and 4.5 μg/ml for SKOV). These results are the first reports of camptothecine and its derivatives in these species and offer rich alternative plant sources for the anticancer compound, camptothecine.